National Geographic Channel Pulls ‘Nazi War Diggers’ Series

By TOM MASHBERG

March 31, 2014

National Geographic Channel said Monday that it would “indefinitely” pull a planned television series on unearthing Nazi war graves after days of blistering criticism from archeologists and others who said the show handled the dead with macabre disrespect.

The channel said that after “consulting with colleagues” at the National Geographic Society, it would not broadcast the series, “Nazi War Diggers,” in May as scheduled “while questions raised in recent days regarding accusations about the program can be properly reviewed.” The show was to have been broadcast globally except in the United States.

National Geographic Channel International had commissioned four episodes of the show, in which two British metal detecting specialists, a Polish relics hunter, and an American, Craig Gottlieb, who deals in Nazi World War II artifacts, hunt for the graves of German and Red Army soldiers on the Eastern Front.

National Geographic Channel issued a statement Friday defending the show and saying the criticism was premature, based on early publicity materials that “did not provide important context about our team’s methodology.” The channel pulled those materials from its website.

That did not appease archeologists, battlefield historians and others, who have mounted a social-media and a letter-writing campaign aimed in particular at the National Geographic Society to derail the show.

The channel said in its Friday statement that the Latvian government had approved the team’s work, which took place on Latvian and Polish soil. But the critics contacted the Latvian War Museum, which said in a statement that it had opposed the show.

National Geographic also said that none of the items dug up during filming would be sold but instead would be donated to war museums. The critics however found a posting on a military collectors’ online forum in which Mr. Gottlieb described locating a Latvian war helmet in June and preparing it for sale.

“This is treasure hunting not archaeology,” said Tony Pollard, director of the Center for Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, who has appeared on National Geographic programs and other documentaries about unearthing war dead. “I have seen human remains brandished like trophies before, but in dodgy Youtube videos. The trailer on the Internet was absolutely shocking, and very damaging for National Geographic.”

In its statement, the National Geographic Channel said that “while we support the goal of the series, which is to tell the stories of long lost and forgotten soldiers,” it takes “seriously the questions that have been asked.”